Epilogue: Obfuscation
~BlackRoseRaven

A month after the Velite attack, Twilight Sparkle stood silently outside the library in Ponyville, looking mutely up at the ivory moon in the night sky before she sighed softly and turned around, striding back inside and looking around at her gathered friends. Fluttershy, in a medical outfit with Scarlet Sage beside her, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash all wearing golden, tight vests with the Crest of the Sun stitched onto them, and Rarity wearing a heavy, stained green apron and looking tired after a long day of work.

Ponyville… no, all of Equestria, was getting ready for war. The Velites had been beaten back, but no longer could anypony ignore the fact that darkness had returned. Monsters strode brazenly though the night, and things slithered along the borders that had once existed only in the nightmares of ponykind, now suddenly real… and awfully hungry.

Yes, something was coming, to try and swallow up their light, to try and destroy their homes, to try and ruin the world they lived in… and Twilight gritted her teeth as she looked over her friends. After Trixie’s death, she vowed that she wouldn’t let that happen… that another life wouldn’t be uselessly lost. That she wouldn’t permit another friend to die if she could prevent it… and then she glanced over her shoulder as there was a knock at the library door before she flicked her horn, opening it as her mouth opened… before her breath caught in her throat.

Luna strode in, smiling calmly, her mane once more filled with stars and bright, dressed in tight-fitting blue armor that locked over her frame as the others stared in surprise, Pinkie dropping a muffin she had been about to bite into… and behind her, Scrivener Blooms followed, his glasses gone, a black vest over his charcoal body, his white mane and tail now seeming to glow faintly as it half-floated. For a few moments, there was only silence as they stared at the two, and then Luna finally looked towards Twilight, asking with a wide grin: “Did thou miss us?”

Twilight could only stare, and then a smile broke out over her face and she stepped forwards, hugging them both fiercely and whispering: “You have no idea.”

And Luna and Scrivy both gazed warmly at each other even as they hugged her tightly back and the others cheered and stamped their hooves, all too well aware now that even in the darkest of times there could be the glimmer of the stars and the radiance of the sun… and, on nights like tonight, the dancing of the trails of the lunar lights high in the ephemeral black skies above.

There’s no cruelty worse than killing yourself to help the ones who love you.
Save two lives: help them stand instead of letting yourself fall.

November 15th, 2011 – November 22nd, 2011